


a curtain of stars

by icarusandtheson



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, First Meetings, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson
Summary: “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”-- Erin Morgenstern,The Night CircusIn which Alex is left a little breathless by the opening act.





	a curtain of stars

**Author's Note:**

> A fragment that would have been left languishing indefinitely alongside a longer story, so I decided to post it. Happy April, everyone -- new beginnings, and lots of light.

Alex has work tomorrow, and it was late enough when he walked in that he doesn’t dare to check the time now. But for the first time all night, he’s sitting still, the itch to keep moving muted to a murmur under his skin, easily overwhelmed by the anticipatory buzz of the crowd. He’s made it on less sleep, probably.

He tilts his head back, stares up at the tent -- soft silver fabric, dotted with accents of black and blue, a night sky in reverse. He touches a silver bauble over his head, low enough that his fingers can just brush the bottom, feels no resistance at all as it drifts to the side and returns to its place just as smoothly. Part of him wants to stand and search for a string, but the overwhelming majority of him wants to believe in the magic of it, at least for the next hour or so. When the lights go up he can come back to the real world, all parlor tricks and hidden wire.

The stream of people through the front entrance seems never-ending, the jostle of bodies behind him nearly unseating him a few times. Alex reaches into his pocket and fumbles for his ticket stub, half-certain someone will take one look at him and wonder how the hell he managed to afford a front-row ticket -- half-certain he’ll look and it won’t be a ticket at all, just a crumpled receipt or scrap of paper. He pulls it out, the tiny silver designs catching even in the dim before-show light, winking at him.

It was a mistake, whoever was manning the ticket booth should be fired -- Alex didn’t even pay, he was still trying to find a list of prices when the ticket was pushed out to him under the midnight-blue curtain, the bright sound of a bell rung to call the next in line. A little bit of luck. He figures he’s earned that much.

No one so much as glances in his direction, but he doesn’t relax until the lights go down.

The volume drops around him, hushed whispers still moving from seat to seat.

Then a man steps out from behind the curtain, and the noise stops abruptly, as if cut with a knife.

He regards the room with an easy familiarity, gaze sweeping from one side of the crowd to the other as if he’s expected each and every one of them. He crosses the floor with a handful of long strides, his footsteps the only sound in the room. There’s something hypnotic about the pattern of his clothing -- if Alex focuses too long, the designs seem to move, scrawling up the shimmering blue fabric of his suit jacket and resting somewhere near his collar. It’s almost too beautiful to be called a costume -- he wears it like a second skin.

Alex glances down at his own clothes and feels decidedly grateful for the darkness.

The ringmaster -- he has to be, nobody else could command a room like that -- reaches up, plucks a pale blue bauble out from over his head. The fabric of his jacket moves like water, rippling easily over his arms, across broad shoulders, before settling again. The bauble rests in his palm, painting the flawless white fabric of his gloves a soft robin’s egg-blue. He tosses it high into the air, and Alex feels the hairs at the back of his neck stand, a quick, high ringing in his ears before the room blooms with light.

Alex blinks down at his hands, suddenly painted silver, and looks up, sees the bauble above him glowing softly. He smiles, completely awed, and reaches up to touch it again -- it’s warm, now, vibrating under his touch like something living.

He feels eyes on him, and when he glances back at the main stage, the ringmaster is staring directly at him. He smiles, brief but warm, and Alex realizes he must be gaping like an idiot. He fixes his expression, but the ringmaster has already moved on. Alex vaguely wants to disappear into the cracks of the grandstand, but the embarrassment evaporates quickly as he takes in the stage -- he can see the structure of it now, high trapezes and multiple raised platforms, all bathed in the soft silver-blue light.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” says the ringmaster, stepping up onto the central platform. The applause dulls, but doesn’t die completely. The ringmaster chuckles softly -- a swath of his cheekbone is painted blue in the stained-glass light.  “Welcome to our show.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Washington's costume is very loosely based on [Chris Jackson's 2017 Tony Awards suit](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/d/db/Veronica_Vazquez-Jackson.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170819155704) because I have no impulse control.  
> *Title and quote in the summary both from Erin Morgenstern's "The Night Circus", whose rich and descriptive prose stuck with me years later and half-inspired this whole thing.  
> *For all things Whamilton and fic content that may or may not make its way onto here, find me on Tumblr at [icarusandtheson](https://icarusandtheson.tumblr.com/).


End file.
